>> This is Mission Control Houston, let's go down now
to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama
and talk with Lori Meggs.
Lori, typically we wouldn't be talking about a printer heading
up to the Space Station but we hear
that this one may be a little bit different and special.
>> Lori Meggs: That' right, Josh.
It's not your average printer.
This is a 3-D printer that could be used on Space Station
where NASA astronauts might not have to wait
on resupply space craft to their supplies.
They may be actually able to build something right there.
Joining me now is Niki Werkheiser
and she is the 3-D print project manager here at Marshall.
Niki, first of all, tell us what 3-D printing is all about.
>> Niki Werkheiser: Hi Lori, happy to.
Thank you for having me.
3-D printing, a 3-D printer will extrude plastic,
metals or other materials to build layer on top of layer
to create a three dimensional object.
So you might be able to print all sorts of tools,
spare parts, things like that.
>> Lori Meggs: So it kind of sounds
like the Star Trek replicator, right?
>> Niki Werkheiser: Absolutely.
We get that a lot and it is the first step toward.
>> Lori Meggs: Tell us how it all works.
>> Niki Werkhesier: Okay.
The 3-D printer that we're going to fly
in Space Station will actually be the first ever 3-D printer
in space.
There are tons of printers.
Many people have heard about on the ground.
As a matter of fact, my 9 and 11-year-old daughters are asking
for one for Christmas.
And they have them at Staples and places like that.
And you can create all kinds of things with them but the one
that we're looking at for microgravity, of course.
We want to build space parts.
So the design optimization is very important.
As we all know in space, you have to wait for,
as you mentioned, the resupply ships.
If you need a spare part or you have to fly a lot of spares
up which take considerable mass and which cost money.
Also things break and things do actually get lost.
We've been on Space Station for quite a while
and things get sucked into corners and crevices.
>> Lori Meggs: No.
>> Niki Werkheiser: Yes it happened.
And on top of that, there are unique types of things
that we could do if we had a capability to build in space.
For example, cube sats [phonetic].
Many people have about these small cube sats
and with the onset of nano-sat technologies that we have,
these are used for all sorts of things in academia, commercial,
and you actually can deploy them from the Space Station.
If we were able to print these on orbit,
the crew could assembly them and deploy them from Station.
You can do all sorts of unique structures and just an abundance
of different types of experiments.
>> Lori Meggs: So this one was built here at Marshall.
>> Niki Werkheiser: Yeah, this one was printed here.
And this is just kind of a case of one.
It's got some electronics that go inside
and you deploy it from Station.
>> Lori Meggs: So how long does it take
to build something like that?
>> Niki Werkheiser: Something
like this would actually only probably take an hour,
hour and a half.
And then you also have things like this.
It looks pretty nonassuming.
It looks pretty simple.
You could print this probably in 15 to 20 minutes
and we would just upload a CAD drawing
to the printer on station.
But what this is actually is MSG, an extraction tool
that they did not have on orbit.
And actually MSGG was down for around 6 months waiting
on a resupply ship to bring this up.
This is something with the 3-D printer capabilitiy
that we could've actually printed, had in orbit within 30,
45 minutes able to go.
>> Lori Meggs: Wow, what else do we see here [inaudible] the
machine --
>> Niki Werkheiser: We've got some other just fun things.
Of course, people think of crew tools and wrenches.
We've got a metal one here too and we're starting with plastics
for the first printer.
But we will be moving to metals and other types of materials.
We've got things like that --
you can imagine different size sample containers.
You can also do interactive -- oop, sorry.
[Laughter] That wouldn't happen in space.
It would float away.
So you have interactive parts like this that can move.
You can do complex parts as well with unique structures.
>> Lori Meggs: So tell us about the unit
that is actually going to station.
>> Niki Werkheiser: So we're working
with the company MAIDENSPACE.
They're actually located at Aimes Research Center
and the project is led here out of Marshall Space Flight Center.
It's a really good interaction
between this commercial company whose business model is
to create a commercial additive manufacturing 3-D printing
facility on Space Station.
This is the first step.
It is a technology demonstration.
We'll operate in the microgravity science Glovebox
and NASA has been providing the discipline expertise
and the expertise in terms of taking a printer
that you would use on the ground
which MAIDENSPACE are absolutely experts on that as well
as designing for space.
And making sure that we can verify that for microgravity,
the physics of microgravity as well as the safety
and operational constraints
in the controlled environment of space station.
>> Lori Meggs: And this is also critical being able
to replace parts like this on orbit
for future long duration trips.
>> Niki Werkheiser: Absolutely.
The big thing about this is
for Space Station even it will decrease risk, decrease cost,
and increase efficiency but for longer term missions,
for space exploration this is absolutely a
critical technology.
>> Lori Meggs: And talk about the ones that we have here
on Earth that -- will this technology make them better?
>> Niki Werkheiser: Absolutely.
There's a lot of applications.
We talked to several of our industry partners as well
as academia even international partners on the ground here.
This is an area that has exploded in the last few years.
It's been being used in an abundance.
So there are lessons learned
from the microgravity application.
It could actually apply to the things on the Earth especially
when you think of things such as maybe the Army.
Maybe you have folks out in the field in a remote area
and they've had the same type of problems we have
in space, things break.
And you're remote -- you can also think of things
like submarines or even just remote regions.
Also commercial growth, so in this smaller size and form
and function that you get from the printer,
you could absolutely apply that to Earth applications.
>> Lori Meggs: So we've seen the video of the printer and work
with that but how big is this unit?
I mean -
>> Niki Werkheiser: So this is actually --
this is kind of cool.
I don't know if you can see it here
but this is actually we printed a model of the 3-D printer.
This first printer will be a technology demonstration.
So it's a little smaller because we fit it inside
of the microgravity science Glovebox on Space Station.
So the crew will actually put their hands inside
of the glove box to operate the experiment.
We're getting a lot of materials data
and ultimately what this will demonstrate is that the objects
that we print in space are equitable quality to those
that we print on the ground.
That there are no difference in the way
that the printing takes place in the physics
and the material quality.
Maidenspace [assumed spelling] has already done a series
of parabolic flights
on the KC-135 affectionately known as the Vomit Comet.
And they've had excellent results.
Everything has shown that it is equitable Earth
but you get the short spurts in microgravity and we want
to be able to generate full products on orbit.
>> Lori Meggs: I'm sure astronauts are excited
about this.
So tell me when we'll see this on station.
>> Niki Werkheiser: We will see this next fall.
It'll be launching on Space X 5 [phonetic] and we're actually
with the astronaut office.
We already have a set of tools and things that they've picked
out and said hey, can you provide this for us?
And we're working toward that now.
>> Lori Meggs: Very exciting stuff.
Can't wait to see it.
I'm -- maybe you can build me something a little bit later
on today.
>> Niki Werkheiser: Yeah,
we absolutely could have fun with this.
Thank you, Lori.
>> Lori Meggs: Thank you, Niki, so much
and let's take a live look
into the Payload Operations Integration Center.
Busy at work today setting up experiments.
Slam D [phonetic], they're working with the crew on station
to get that working and they'll be busy all day long
and all week long.
That'll do it for us here
in the POaylod Operations Integration Center.
Now back to you, Josh, at Mission Control in Houston.
>> Josh: All right, thank you Lori.
That 3-D printer could change the way we do business onboard
here the International Space Station.
Make it quite a bit easier
for the crews onboard the Space Station and us here
on the ground to get supplies for them.
So we thank you for that.